The chief executive officer of A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, a bellwether for global trade, said the US economy will outperform Europe’s, driven by strong consumption, according to Bloomberg.

“We expect the US to do better than Europe in the short and in the medium term,” Soren Skou said Wednesday in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Anna Edwards and Mark Cudmore.

“In the US, imports are still way above the levels we saw pre-pandemic,” the CEO said. “We also see in the US that the consumers have a lot of savings stemming back from the pandemic times.”

Even with volumes declining, the container line industry is making record profits as supply-line disruptions coupled with a shortage of shipping capacity enable Maersk and its peers to charge higher prices for their services. The Copenhagen-based company on Tuesday raised its 2022 profit outlook by $7 billion, saying freight rates will remain high for longer than previously expected.

“Volumes are weak into Europe but less so through the US,” Skou said. “Clearly we are seeing the biggest weakness in Europe.”

Maersk, which controls about one-sixth of the world’s container trade, said Wednesday that global container volumes declined 2.3% in the second quarter following a 1.7% drop in the first three months of the year, and container trade is now below the pre-pandemic trend.

Source: Bloomberg